Abstract #2456
MR angiography of the carotid circulation using two-dimensional parallel imaging on a 32 Channel 3.0T System
Fenchel M, Miller S, Laub G, Nael K, Ruehm S, Finn J
Eberhard-Karls-University Tuebingen, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles
The feasibility of combined in-plane and through-plane parallel-acquisition for isotropic 3D contrast enhanced MR angiography (MRA) of the carotid and vertebro-basilar circulation should be assessed. Six volunteers and five patients with suspected cerebro-vascular disease were examined on a 3.0T MR-scanner. Contrast-enhanced 3D CE-MRA was acquired with parallel-acquisition (GRAPPA) in both phase- and slice encoding-directions. Scoring of image quality on a 4-point-scale [range 0-3] yielded 2.51.0 and 2.11.0 for extra-cranial and intra-cranial vessel segments in volunteers and 2.80.6 and 2.01.2 in patients, respectively. This study shows that contrast-enhanced MRA, applying parallel-imaging in both phase- and slice-encoding direction, is feasible at 3.0T.
